Strange New Respect, 1992

by Tom Bethell
The American Spectator, September, 1992

[...]

A couple of days after its Souter-has-grown story, the New York Times attacked
Justice Thomas for not following Souter's "pattern of growth." Here we come to
an unreported aspect of the story. An increasing percentage of women seeking
abortions are black; for every three black babies born, two are aborted; black
women are more than twice as likely to get abortions as white women. At least
400,000 black pregnancies are aborted each year; 70 percent of Planned
Parenthood clinics are in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. As Michael K.
Flaherty pointed out in last month's issue, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret
Sanger wrote that "we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the
Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if
it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

Hmmmmm. Is it possible that word of this somehow got out to Justice Thomas
even though the news is not fit to print? There is, no doubt, considerable
right-wing support for abortion today, but its basis is carefully left
unstated--at least in print. A right-winger I know is particularly in favor of
subsidized abortions. Here's an angle on racism that journalists don't want to
dig into. It might be a little uncomfortable for their choice-promoting feminist
friends to see who their real bedfellows are. Harken unto abortionist Edward
Allred, quoted in the San Diego Union as saying: "When a sullen black woman of
17 or 18 can decide to have a baby and get welfare and food stamps and become a
burden to us all, it's time to stop. In parts of South Los Angeles, having
babies for welfare is the only industry the people have."

A little more of Allred & Co. in print and blacks might become more
suspicious of the abortion-promoting liberals they have faithfully followed for
years. But it's worth noting that the published expression of right-wing (as
opposed to merely conservative) opinion is taboo in the U.S. today. The taboo
is faithfully observed by conservatives. Liberals, by contrast, relish the added
leverage provided by those on their own side but further to the left, and they
are delighted not to have to contend with the full spectrum of opposition from
the right. If books like The Rising Tide of Color, written by Lothrop Stoddard
(Ph.D., Harvard) were still published by respectable houses (Scribner's), those
who support abortion on ostensibly liberal grounds might also come under
suspicion of liking its demographic outcome. Liberals are big supporters of
population control in the Third World, after all, not to mention subsidized
abortions here.
Don't expect the New York Times to play up minority abortions any time soon,
then. Recently, however, the maverick Nicholas Von Hoffman wrote a bold column,
published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, applauding the Court's ruling. Although
he avoided any mention of blacks, he did say that the people who are aborted are
just the kind who would be confronting us with Uzis later in life if they were
not. Disdaining the evasive rhetoric of "choice," he came right out and
applauded the sociological outcome of abortion on demand. A breakthrough, if
I'm not mistaken. I'm sorry he couldn't make it for the Strange New Respect
award. Nick is a sociable old cove and I think he would have been delighted to
pin the Taney Medal on Kennedy's chest.